West of Guam

by Raoul Whitfield

  Jo shook his head. His eyes were very small.

  “You know much about the American,” he said calmly. “Almost too much.”

  Sadi Ratan was watching him closely. Jo looked at the girl, addressed the police lieutenant.

  “The Great Cardoro has done his tricks here often—for a period of years. He is Spanish—there is a bond between him and the Spanish here. There is a Spanish paper in Manila. News of Spaniards all over the world reaches it and is printed or filed away in the paper morgue. I have been looking through the morgue files. I find that Cardoro was worth twice as much two years ago than he was six months ago. His losses were due to gambling. I found a later item stating that Cardoro the Great had become engaged to an American girl of the theatre, Miss Jessie Rayne. And I found one more item of three months ago. In Melbourne a gambling place was raided. One of the heaviest losers had been Cardoro. He had stated then that he was willing his money to Miss Rayne, his fiancée, and that on the day of their marriage he would never gamble again.”

  The girl was watching him narrowly—her breathing was heavy. The older woman was tense in her chair. Jo said, smiling a little:

  “So there you are.”

  Sadi Ratan said sharply, “There you are—where? What of it?”

  Jo Gar shrugged. “But Cardoro has continued gambling. Continued losing. His fortune is willed to Miss Rayne. But will there be any fortune—would there have been any fortune—if Cardoro had not been—”

  The girl shrilled at him, “You are telling me that I killed—Dario!

  You dare—”

  Jo Gar shook his head. “I am not,” he said quietly. “You did not love him, but you did not kill him. You do not know so much about knives, and you are not strong enough.”

  The girl’s eyes were wide; her face was pale. Sadi Ratan breathed something that the Island detective did not catch. He said softly:

  “But you realized, Miss Rayne, that the money you had married Cardoro for would not be for you, unless something was done. And you decided that something should be—death.”

  The girl cried: “No—”

  Jo Gar said steadily: “Yes. You waited for the opportunity. The American, Markden, offered it. He had reason to hate Cardoro. He had a record and you knew about it. He was a gambler on cock fights, and that was why the blood-stained knife spur was found beside the dead man. But you went too far. Markden is an American, and he would not kill and then boast about it as a Filipino or a Spaniard might do. He would not hate that much.”

  He paused and said very slowly: “Cardoro was killed with a knife—not a cock fight spur. He was killed by a strong man or woman, who knew how to handle a knife. He was killed by—”

  He turned and looked at the girl’s companion. He said quietly:

  “You murdered Dario Cardoro. You did not throw the knife far enough into the Bay, in your hurry. And you were seen throwing it. I have the knife.”

  The woman sprang from the chair. She screamed in Spanish, terribly. From the folds of her dress steel color caught the light of the room. Her right arm was lifted.

  Jo Gar said, “Stop—”

  The woman’s right hand went down into the folds of the black dress she wore. She said in a hysterical tone:

  “You lie—”

  Jo Gar’s right hand made swift movement; his Colt was low at his right side.

  “No,” he said steadily. “I do not lie. You murdered Cardoro. Drop the knife you were about to throw—on the floor.”

  The woman was breathing heavily; her eyes held a wild expression. But her hand remained in the folds of her black dress.

  Jo said: “Quickly—drop it!” He raised the gun slightly.

  The knife made clattering sound as it struck the wood of the floor. The woman in black slipped downward, slowly, in a faint. Jo said:

  “Well, I have the knife now, anyway.” He went over and picked it up. “She did not throw it into the Bay—and she was not seen throwing it. But I was coming close—and her nerves—”

  The Rayne girl was on the divan, rocking back and forth. Her eyes stared somewhere beyond the figure of Jo Gar. She spoke in a monotone.

  “She made me—tell her when Dario slept. She used the knife and left the knife spur, touching it in his blood. She hated him. He loved her once, but he sent her away. He was losing, gambling away all the money he had willed to me. She made me help her—she was to have some of—the money. I didn’t want—to do it.”

  Jo Gar looked at Sadi Ratan. “I thought at first that he had been murdered outside, carried in. That was wrong. And I thought that the knife had been thrown away. That was wrong, too. But when I saw the woman’s eyes, saw her watching me—”

  He shrugged. The woman on the floor stirred and moaned. The Rayne girl said:

  “He was brutal—it was self-defense. He was brutal to both of us—”

  Jo Gar smiled slightly. “Your defense is your own affair,” he said gently. “I am very little interested.”

  Lieutenant Ratan frowned and swore. Jo Gar said:

  “You were so sure of the American. So sure he was guilty. Now you must free him.”

  Sadi Ratan muttered:

  “All the evidence we had—pointed to him.”

  Jo Gar sighed. “That is so,” he agreed softly. “And that was why I had to go to a newspaper and seek the evidence—you did not have.”

  The Man from Shanghai

  Jo Gar has forty minutes in which to solve a murder.

  Sadi Ratan, lieutenant of police, flicked Manila dust from his khaki uniform and smiled at the shine of his boots. He inspected the insignia of his office, striped on the left sleeve of his coat, lifted his dark eyes and continued to smile at Jo Gar.

  “I thought it would please you to know that I have been ordered to go aboard the China Maru at Quarantine, Señor Gar,” he said gently. “The person in whom I have interest is a client of yours, I am told.”

  Jo Gar lifted a stubby, brown hand to his thin lips. His diminutive body was sprawled in the fan-backed chair of his office, almost beneath the slightly squeaking ceiling fan. The Island detective parted his lips and tapped his palms against a yawn.

  “Many times my clients have disturbed me,” he said tonelessly, his gray-blue eyes looking somewhere beyond Lieutenant Ratan. “However, Miss Crale is no longer a client of mine, Lieutenant.”

  Sadi Ratan widened his eyes in faint surprise. Jo Gar smiled very slightly.

  “Hysterical ladies are not pleasing—in the tropics,” the Island detective murmured. “I received her radio requesting me to board the China Maru on Cavite, Lieutenant. My answer was a refusal. I presume she then radioed the police.”

  Sadi Ratan pressed his lips close together and frowned in the direction of Jo’s knees. The ceiling fan stirred hot air about the small office. “Strange,” the lieutenant of Manila police said with faint sarcasm.

  “I had felt that you preferred wealthy clients to poor ones, Señor Gar.”

  He turned towards the door that led to the creaky, wooden stairs and the calle off the Escolta, Manila’s main business street.

  Jo Gar lighted a brown-paper cigarette, blew smoke thinly towards the slow whirling fan.

  “You had felt correctly, Lieutenant,” he said tonelessly. “But Virginia Crale’s life has been threatened so often, in her imagination, that her fees bored me beyond their value in cash.”

  Sadi Ratan turned near the door, facing the chair in which Jo Gar was seated.

  “You are kind to allow the police to work on the case,” he stated grimly, a sneer on his handsome face.

  The Island detective smiled gently. “It was kind of you to inform me that you were going aboard the boat. I am afraid your trip will be useless, but there is the advantage of a cool breeze off Cavite.”

  Sadi Ratan bowed his head jerkily and went from the room. Jo listened to the sound of his highly polished boots on the creaky steps. From the calle below came the shrill cries of drivers. Odors reached the room and there was the dee
per noise of whistles on the Pasig river. The Island detective rolled the brown-paper cigarette between his short fingers. After a little time he leaned forward, lifted the radio message from his battered cane desk. He slumped back in the wicker chair, read softly and tonelessly.

  MY LIFE IS AGAIN IN DANGER STOP I HAVE BEEN THREATENED TWICE SINCE BOARDING THE BOAT AT NAGASAKI STOP I THINK IT IS THE MAN FROM SHANGHAI STOP PLEASE BOARD THE CHINA MARU AT QUARANTINE AND COME DIRECTLY TO MY CABIN STOP CRALE

  Jo Gar tossed the radio message to the surface of his desk. He sighed heavily, leaned back and closed his gray-blue eyes.

  “The man from Shanghai,” he breathed softly. “That would be Jacobi.”

  He rose languidly, moved to a small cabinet in a corner. It was early afternoon, only an hour beyond siesta time. That corner of the office was even hotter than the other portions. Jo slowly opened a drawer and thumbed through cards until he found the one he wanted. He raised it, looked down at it. He read the words written in his own careful hand very softly.

  “Baron Jacobi. Legitimacy of title uncertain. Store on the Calle Real. Collector of lacquer—red a specialty. Many trips to China. Reputed wealthy. Collection in Manila second only to that of Virginia Crale. Who suspects him of threatening her life for the reason he wants to buy her collection which she has repeatedly refused to sell. Jacobi known along the Escolta as the Man from Shanghai. Methods of obtaining pieces for his collection sometimes not legitimate. Considerable power here and in Shanghai.”

  Jo Gar placed the card back in the drawer, nodding his gray-haired head slowly. A faint smile edged his thin lips. He turned his left palm downward and looked at his wristwatch. The hands showed forty minutes after two.

  He went across to another chair and lifted his pith helmet, placed it on his head. The white duck suit was less soiled than the helmet. Jo stood thinking for several seconds, then went to the desk and took from a drawer his Colt .45. He placed it carefully in the deep right pocket of his trousers. Leaving the room he went slowly down the wooden stairs.

  At the foot of them, just within the doorway of the old frame building he encountered a messenger boy. The Filipino smiled at him and handed him an envelope. “It is a message of the radio,” he stated in Tagalog.

  The Island detective said: “No doubt then that it has importance.”

  The messenger smiled and nodded, and left him alone. Tearing open the envelope Jo looked down at the printed words.

  KINDLY MEET CHINA MARU AT QUARANTINE STOP SHOW THIS TO PROPER AUTHORITIES AND DO NOT FAIL ME STOP MY LIFE ENDANGERED BECAUSE OF VALUABLE POSSESSION STOP BARON JACOBI

  Jo Gar narrowed his gray eyes as he refolded the slip of paper, placed it within the envelope again.

  “So,” he murmured meditatively. “A female suspects a male—and a male suspects—”

  He hesitated, beckoning to the driver of a caleso as he reached the street.

  “—and a male suspects, perhaps, a female,” he half whispered.

  When the caleso driver had shrilled his pony into the proper position near the curb, Jo Gar climbed inside the carriage.

  “The dock of the Quarantine steamer,” he instructed. “I realize that it is ten squares distant, but still I should like to arrive there within an hour.”

  The caleso driver informed him in Tagalog that his pony was very fast, perhaps the fastest in Manila. He elaborated on the speed of the animal for minutes, as the pony ambled towards the Escolta. But Jo Gar was thinking of the China Maru, and of Virginia Crale—and of the man from Shanghai. Once, he closed his slanted eyes and chuckled. Sadi Ratan would be surprised to see him board the Quarantine steamer.

  Near the Manila Hotel the driver twisted his head and stated that the heat was not good for his cough. He would prefer to be in Baguio, where there was mountain coolness. Jo Gar lighted a brown-paper cigarette. The driver observed that he was afraid he would not live long. Jo Gar said tonelessley:

  “Many people fear death—most of them are fools.”

  The driver said: “Most of them are poor, like myself.”

  Jo Gar did not reply. Neither Virginia Crale nor Baron Jacobi were poor. Each feared death. He wondered, as he pulled on the cigarette, if they were fools. He decided, as the Quarantine dock came into sight, that they were not.

  The lieutenant of Manila police, Sadi Ratan, stood aft on the deck of the Luzon as Jo Gar strolled up the gangway. His back was to the Island detective. Jo went forward and seated himself. When the Quarantine steamer got under way he dozed in the shade of the superstructure. After about twenty minutes the sloping island of Cavite was to the port and the China Maru was a half mile ahead. She was a big boat, one of the newest in service. Jo lighted a brown-paper cigarette, rose and went aft.

  Sadi Ratan turned, facing him suddenly. The lieutenant’s perfectly uniformed figure stiffened.

  “I thought that Miss Crale was no longer a client of yours, Señor Gar,” he stated coldly.

  “That is so,” Jo replied quietly. “A different matter takes me aboard the China Maru.”

  Sadi Ratan smiled mockingly. “It is one thing to refuse a client’s orders—and another to see the Manila police interested, perhaps.”

  The Island detective shook his head slowly. “I am not interested in Miss Crale, Lieutenant.”

  Sadi Ratan shrugged, turned away from Jo. The Luzon steamed on, nearing the big liner. She came around in a circle, astern of the China Maru. Quarantine officials and few newspapermen lined the port rail. Passengers on the big vessel looked down at the small one steaming in towards the boarding ladder. Jo Gar shaded his eyes with a brown palm and looked outward and upward.

  He did not see Miss Crale. But the figure of Baron Jacobi was easily seen. The baron was waving his right arm slowly from side to side. He was hatless, and his blond hair was as ruffled as ever. As the Luzon steamed close to the big boat Jo’s keen eyes spotted the red tie that Jacobi usually wore—it stood out clearly against the white of his shirt and suit.

  The Island detective waved a hand slowly, but the baron turned aside and Jo saw the figure of a deck steward at the rail, beside Jacobi. He was evidently saying something; the baron vanished from the rail. The steward stood for a few seconds, looking down at the Quarantine steamer, then he, too, vanished.

  A voice from behind Jo said: “You understand, of course, that the police have been called into this case.”

  Jo Gar turned slowly, looked into the dark eyes of Lieutenant Ratan.

  “Case?” he said gently. “Oh—of course. Miss Crale’s life has been threatened.”

  Sadi Ratan frowned. He drew a deep breath.

  “I am not fooled, Señor Gar,” he said nastily.

  Jo smiled.

  “It is good that you use the present tense,” he replied. “Often one is wise to neglect thoughts of the past.”

  He bowed slightly and moved towards the group forward, waiting to board the big boat. The Luzon scraped against the China Maru’s boarding deck. As Jo moved forward the form of Sadi Ratan reached his side. He was brushed back as the police lieutenant called: “Step aside, please—it is a police matter.”

  The Island detective chuckled. Hennigger, of the Manila News, grinned at him and pointed a thumb towards the back of Lieutenant Ratan.

  “Murder or suicide?” he asked.

  Jo Gar smiled. “A serious crime, clearly,” he replied. “It is a police matter.”

  Hennigger grunted, regarded Jo with narrowed, blue eyes.

  “What you doing here?” he asked.

  Jo Gar shrugged. “The Bay is cooler than the Escolta,” he replied.

  The reporter swore. “The ear is quicker than the eye,” he returned.

  “Maybe you’ve heard something I haven’t seen.”

  They moved to the boarding deck and climbed the gangway to a lower deck of the big boat. Jo said:

  “I must see if my third cousin, Rinaldo, is still a member of the crew.”

  He moved away from Hennigger, who nodded his head and s
aid with sarcasm: “That’s why I came aboard—my grandmother is bringing her father over from Nagasaki.”

  Jo Gar turned and said seriously: “I trust they have had an easy voyage.”

  He went upstairs to Deck B, reached the purser’s desk. The dapper Chinese showed white teeth.

  “The cabin of Baron Jacobi?” Jo said questioningly. “I have been asked to come to him.”

  The Chinese said: “It is A Deck—Room 17.”

  Jo Gar smiled, thanked the purser. He climbed a broader flight of steps, reached A Deck. Glancing into the Grand Saloon he did not see Jacobi. After some difficulty he reached the corridor leading to Room 17, an outside room. He moved along the corridor, halted, rapped on the door.

  There was no answer. Jo Gar rapped again. The deep-toned whistle of the China Maru sounded in a short blast. There was engine vibration. Jo knocked a third time, then turned the knob of the door with his left hand. The door opened inward—he stepped into the cabin.

  When he saw the body on the bed, Jo stood very still. Baron Jacobi was lying on his back—there was red on his lips and chin. His eyes were opened, staring up at the ceiling. One arm hung over the edge of the bed—the hand of the other, with the fingers curved, clutched at his red tie. A chair overturned—Jo’s eyes moved about the cabin, found nothing else disturbed.

  After a few seconds he moved nearer the bed. The cabin was large—the bed was a good-size one. Jo said softly:

  “A little more than five minutes—from the time he left the rail—until I entered the room. Perhaps—”

  His body straightened, grew tense as a scream from somewhere beyond the corridor reached him. It was the scream of a woman. It came into the cabin of the dead man once—then again. There were men’s voices, and the sound of shoes beating against the corridor linoleum. The Island detective stood almost motionless, looking down at the body of Baron Jacobi. A voice reached him from the far end of the corridor.

  “Steward—get a doctor! Cabin 29 hurry!”

  Jo turned his body slowly, went to a small desk near a deck window. He looked down at a check; it was on the Bank of Manila. It had not been filled in. A corner was folded—on the back of the fold there was small handwriting. Jo leaned forward and read: “Crale—29—port.”